Monster in the Closet

Monster in the Closet is a satirical Troma movie featuring a few notable faces, including John Carradine, Howard Duff, the doomed Paul Walker (as a child referred to as "The Professor"), Frank Ashmore, and Denise DuBarry. It’s a ridiculous comedy/horror film but, as can be imagined from the title, it contains a subtext that is somewhat ambiguous and confusing—yet emerges nonetheless.

A number of murders transpire from the sordid depths of so many closets, including one at the beginning involving John Carradine, who portrays a blind man calmly turning off his bedroom lamp before being devoured by the hulking beastie lurking in the dark. The hideous horror sports a Gigeresque "throat symbiote" that emerges, phallic-like, from its circular mouth—ringed with sharp fangs and, apparently, never capable of closing. Then Frank Ashmore and "Richard Clark" (Donald Grant) show up as a pair of newspaper reporters who go to dinner at the home of a child super-genius (Paul Walker), who is inventing some kind of device to stop the trans-dimensional closet monster. I guess.

Claude Akins (the other Andy Griffith) appears as a sheriff who constantly spits tobacco juice into a spittoon—easily one of the most disgusting aspects of this horror film—and he’s killed by the Closet Dweller fairly early on. That whole bit, by the way, if it were part of a sketch comedy like The Kentucky Fried Movie, would’ve been about five minutes long instead of part of a feature-length runtime. And that would’ve been far more appropriate.

Howard Duff plays an Einstein-esque scientist who apparently once cured cholera and now wanders around with a xylophone, playing a few little notes in a plot device that feels borrowed from Close Encounters, of all damned things. This musical combination is supposed to “soothe the savage beast,” one supposes.

The film putters along and, with the exception of a few redemptive scenes—including an appearance by Donald “The Thing” Moffat—is mostly meandering and dull. Clark and the lady professor, Diane (portrayed by the late Denise DuBarry), have a nice chemistry, and there’s a running gag of her becoming virtually hypnotized by simply looking at him. The audience assumes this will eventually be explained, but it never is.

On the whole, this isn’t a movie that’s going to get you all worked up and mucho excited. The comedy isn’t particularly funny, and the plot—such as it is—serves as a thin veneer for a plea for tolerance, as the Monster runs off at the end with Clark in its arms (the implication being, I guess, that the Monster in the Closet is gay). As a critique of repressed mores in Reagan-era America, I suppose the film has stood the test of time—as the overlong comedy sketch that it is.

There are a few cool practical effects scenes, most notably one of the slavering, growling, grotesque closet monster being zapped between electrical poles. At that point, the viewer may think the film is going to end. Alas—no dice.

The final denouement is the declaration that we must “destroy all closets,” because, naturally, doing so would destroy the means of egress the Closet Monster uses to enter our world. But the phrase itself implies, subtextually, that we must destroy whatever is lurking within the closet, in a more symbolic sense. I.e., everyone must “come out of the closet.” Richard Clark is carried away in the loving arms of the monster, who, we suppose, was created because he could never emerge into the light—only brood and mutate in the darkness, a desire warped into something grotesque, eternally hungry… waiting.

But its waiting must feel as interminable as the film itself, which runs out of ideas a full half hour before the credits roll. Not enough Tromatic titties to keep yours truly entertained. It’s like Troma for the Goosebumps set. Stick it on a shelf in the back of an old closet, and let the Monster have at it.

Monster In The Closet Full Movie

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